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[April 1, 1963] Stuck in the Past (April 1963 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

The world is a topsy-turvy place.  Whether it's a coup in Guatemala, or pro-Peronista unrest in Argentina, or a slow-motion civil war in Indochina, one can't open the newspaper without seeing evidence of disorder.  Even at home, it's clear that the battle for Civil Rights is just getting started, with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planning a sit-in campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, the most segregated city in the country.  It's been a long time coming, but there's no question that many folks (on the wrong side of history) are upset at the changing order of things. 

So it's no wonder that some turn to the old familiar pleasures to escape from reality.  And while most science fiction magazines are now flirting with a new, literary style (particularly F&SF), a direction the British are starting to call "The New Wave," Analog Science Fact – Science Fiction sticks stolidly to the same recipe it's employed since the early 1950s: Psi, Hokum, and Conservatism. 

I suppose some might find the April 1963 Analog comforting, but I just found it a slog.  What do you think?

Which Stars Have Planets?, by Stanley Leinwoll

You'd think an article with a name like this would be right up my alley, but it turns out to be some metaphysics about planets causing sunspots.  Because, you see, Jupiter's orbital period of 12 years is close to the solar sunspot cycle of 11 years.  And if you add up the orbital periods of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and divide by four, you get 11 years. 

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?

Nothing.  Not a damned thing.  The latter observation is numerological folderol, and the former is meaningless given that sunspots don't only show up on the side facing Jupiter.

Two stars for the pretty pictures.

"What'll You Give?", by Winston Sanders

Last month, Editor Campbell wrote a piece about how the gas giants of our solar system were untapped reservoirs of chemical wealth just waiting to be exploited.  "Winston Sanders" (a frequent pseudonym of Poul Anderson) has obliged Campbell by writing about a Jupiter mining mission in which a deep-diving spacecraft encounters trouble while scooping the ammonia and methane from the giant planet's atmosphere. 

By all rights, it should be an exciting piece, and yet, it almost completely fails to be.  A tidbit the Young Traveler taught me as I was writing my latest novel: don't assume your audience will find the technical details fascinating.  You have to make them relevant to the characters, described through their reactions. 

I could have done without the hackneyed nationality depictions, too.  Three stars, because the topic is good.  The execution is less so.

Sonny, by Rick Raphael

Hayseed army recruit plays havoc with local electrical systems when he telepaths home instead of writing like everyone else.  The military sends him to Russia to send mental postcards.

It's as dumb and smug as it sounds — the most Campbellian piece of the issue.  It is in English, however.

Two stars.

Last Resort, by Stephen Bartholomew

Things start well-enough in this story about an astronaut slowly but fatally losing air from his capsule.  I liked the bit about using a balloon to find the leak (it drifts to the hole, you see), but all trace of verisimilitude is lost when the spaceman lights not one but two cigarettes during the crisis!  Maybe smokes of the future don't burn oxygen. 

And, of course, the story is "solved" with psi.  Because this is Analog.

Two stars.

Frigid Fracas (Part 2 of 2), by Mack Reynolds

After Middle Middle class mercenary, Major Joe Mauser, utterly louses up his chance at joining the ranks of the Uppers through military daring, he signs up with the underground movement whose aim is to tear the class system down altogether.  He is dispatched to the Sov-world capital of Budapest with the cover of being a liaison, but he's really an agent to see if the Workers' Paradise is similarly inclined to revolution.

This, the fourth installment in this particular future history, is rich on color but poor in credibility, and there's a lot more talking than doing.  It's not as disappointing as Reynolds' recent "Africa" series, but I expected a better conclusion to a promising saga.

Three stars.

Iceberg From Earth, by J. T. McIntosh

Iceberg is an espionage potboiler whose setting is a trio of colonized planets that, blessedly, isn't Earth, Mars, and Venus.  I did appreciate that the hero agent was a woman (the iceberg); I was sad that she wasn't the viewpoint character — instead, it was a rather lackluster and anti-woman fellow spy.  I did like the solar system McIntosh created, though.  Three stars.

A Slight Case of Limbo, by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.

Lastly, if not quite leastly, is this tale about a stout-hearted guy with a weak heart who gives his life to save another.  Except that the other is an alien who swaps the human's ticker with a machine, which turns out to be a mixed blessing.  The story meanders all over the place, and the ending is right out of a mediocre episode of Twilight Zone.  Still, it's not bad — I think I was just disappointed that the Simakian beginning had a Serlingian end.  Three stars.

And so we've come to the end of the April digests (though technically, Analog is now a slick).  Campbell's mag clocks in at a sad 2.6 stars.  Galaxy is the clear champion, at 3.5 stars.  Fantasy and Science Fiction, Fantastic, and New Worlds are all pleasantly above water at 3.2, and Amazing trails badly at 2.1.

Four of 41 fiction pieces were by women — par for the course.  There were enough 4 and 5-star stories to fill two good digests, my favorite of which was On the Fourth Planet, by Jesse Bone.

Speaking of quality, I am proud to announce that Galactic Journey is a finalist for the Best Fanzine Hugo!  Thanks to all who of you who nominated us, and I hope we'll have your continued support come Labor Day.  Either way, we're just happy to have you along for the ride. 

What have you enjoyed the most about the Journey?

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Movies

[Mar. 28, 1963] March of Progress (the movie, Come Fly With Me)

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[While you're reading this article, why not tune in to KGJ, Radio Galactic Journey, playing all the current hits: pop, rock, soul, folk, jazz, country — you might just hear a song from the album released by a new British band: The Beatles!]


By Ashley R. Pollard

March has finally brought a thaw in the weather.  The snow is leaving my fair and pleasant land, and, by the good graces of the Traveler, I have had a metaphorical break from the cold.  In the mail, I received a ticket to yesterday's cinematic premier of Come Fly With Me, a film about Jet Age romance in the airline business, with a note asking if I might provide a review. 

I, of course, obliged.  The viewing turned out to be not quite as glamorous experience as the one portrayed in the movie…if only because watching a preview in a basement cinema in Soho Square with lots of newspaper hacks from Fleet Street chain smoking cigarettes is hardly the epitome of a jet setting lifestyle.

Mind you, the movie can in no way be described as science fictional.  It makes no attempt to portray the effects of technology on society.  But it does a good job of painting a romantic picture of a future where jet travel is taken for granted.

And so, I spent a very pleasant afternoon watching (through the clouds of smoke) a frothy, light-hearted story that starts with Frankie Valli singing the eponymous song Come Fly With Me. 

Despite beginning in New York, dominated by a largely American cast, this is a British production.  It can be best be described as a light, romantic comedy, which doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.  The story centers around three air hostesses, who are all looking for Mister Right—hence the film's subtitle: A Romantic Round the World Manhunt.  The screenplay is an adaption of the book, Girl on a Wing, by Bernard Glemser, that was categorized as chick-lit, so assuming I have my American slang right, this makes Come Fly With Me a chick-flic.

Men beware — this may not be to your taste.  However, as a date night movie it might be ideal.

Dolores Hart leads the billing playing Donna Stuart, who is a woman looking for a rich husband.  She made her screen debut in the 1957 film Loving You as a love interest to Elvis Presley, and appeared with him again in the 1958 King Creole, which featured her first on screen kiss.  Stuart's story arc revolves an on-then-off romance with a German Baron, who is not quite what he seems.

Pamela Tiffin plays Carol Brewster, who is the younger air hostess and comic relief.  She is a Golden Globe nominated actress for her role in One, Two, Three, and as Most Promising Female Newcomer for Summer and Smoke.  Brewster's romance with a dashing airline pilot is the core of the comedy in the movie.  Ms. Tiffin manages to steal every scene she is in, and I imagine she will go far.

Lois Nettleton plays Hilda "Bergie" Bergstrom who is the older woman with a sad history, who despite her protestations is finally won over by a widower.  Ms. Nettleton was a semifinalist in the 1948 Miss America competition, and I discovered she has also appeared in Captain Video, which is the first of two science fiction connections in this movie.

I don't know much about Captain Video, but it did have stories written by Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Arthur C. Clarke, Damon Knight, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Robert Sheckley, and Jack Vance.

The main male romantic lead is played by Hugh O'Brien, a former United States Marine Corps officer, in the role of First Officer Ray Winsley who is the Co-Pilot of the plane a large portion of the story takes place on.  Winsley can best be described as a scoundrel who, in this case, comes good and gets the girl.  O'Brien is mostly known for his roles in Westerns, playing Wyatt Earp, but I discovered he also starred in the 1950 science fiction film Rocketship X-M (which also featured 1 TOBOR, the robot toy…)

Karl Malden's face was instantly recognizable; I've seen him in many films.  He's probably most famous for his role in the 1954 film On the Waterfront, where he played a priest opposite Marlon Brando.

Here he plays a much lighter role, as a recently widowed Walter Lucas, who falls in love with Ms. Nettleton's character.  This part of the story arc is very much in the tradition of mistaken assumptions.  It is driven by his being identified as poor from flying in economy class, which disguises his multi-millionaire background.  There's much comic interplay from this plot device.

Then there is Karlheinz Böhm, who plays the German Baron Franz Von Elzingen.  Böhm is another recognizable star, who I first saw in the 1962 stop-motion Cinerama movie,T he Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, playing one of the brothers.  Here he plays a Baron whose family has fallen on hard times, who is enticed/ forced into smuggling stolen diamonds.

This causes much trouble for his relationship with Ms. Hart's character.  However, this film is far too light and airy to dwell on the darkness of international crime, so he hands himself in to attain true love.

Finally, it was a pleasure to see Richard Wattis, a well known British character actor who has appeared in such films as the 1954, The Belles of St. Trinian's, in a supporting role as an airline manager. 

In sum, Come Fly With Me has a stellar cast.  Also, the cinematography while at times routine, produces iconic images that encapsulates the jet set age, which I imagine will be copied in future films. As they say in Britain, worth a punt.

A final note: again, by no stretch of the imagination can Come Fly With Me be considered science fiction today.  Nevertheless, one can't help but muse how the times have changed to make it thus.

For example, twenty years ago jet engines were the stuff of science fiction.  A little over fifteen years ago, transatlantic flight was not only new, but also arduous with flights taken fifteen or more hours to cross the Atlantic.

Now, transatlantic flight has become routine, even if it is mostly for the wealthy.  It is the stuff of current movies.  It is something you and I could do…after pinching sufficient pence.  Just you wait.  In twenty years, they'll be making films about commercial space travel — and they will be documentaries.




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Magazine

[March 26, 1963] The Wind of Change: New Worlds, April 1963

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[While you're reading this article, why not tune in to KGJ, Radio Galactic Journey, playing all the current hits: pop, rock, soul, folk, jazz, country — you might just hear a song from the album released by a new British band: The Beatles!]


by Mark Yon

It’s the end of March, and with the arrival of Spring, at last, the long, long Winter of 1962-63 has cleared. All in about a fortnight. I can’t tell you what a joy it is to feel warmth outside the house, even if the snow has now turned to rain and damp. Many meteorologists are claiming that ‘The Big Freeze’ is the coldest on record, which it certainly felt like.

I’m not sorry to see Winter go. Hopefully now normal routines can be resumed, if a little damper than usual.

Whilst I try and dry out, let’s look at this month’s New Worlds.

Play With Feeling, by Mr. Michael Moorcock

This month’s Guest Editor is one of my personal-favourite authors at the moment, but not for science fiction. I really like his Fantasy stories of Elric, the albino warrior with a blood-lust, but Mr. Moorcock has been steadily building up a reputation in science-fiction as well. Perhaps more relevant here is that he is also one of the advocates, like Mr. Brian Aldiss and Mr. J. G. Ballard, of the so-called “New Wave” of writers who are determined to rewrite the conventions of science fiction. 

It may therefore not be a surprise that Mr. Moorcock uses this opportunity to explain his viewpoint and set out his stall, so to speak. It’s done well, and I expect that this Introduction may be a rallying call to others. The ongoing debate in this magazine continues, but Mr. Moorcock gives a convincing case for change. 

To the stories. There’s a lot of one-word titles this month, and,
like last month, a mixture of space exploration, strange aliens and espionage stories…

Window On The Moon, by Mr E. C. Tubb

Here’s my first surprise of the issue. After the movement of the serial to the back of the issue in the last few months, here it’s the first story we read. It’s also the return of a once- New Worlds regular, Mr. E. C. Tubb. Window On the Moon is a rip-roaring, hyper-sexed tale of ‘Brits-in-Space’, with a snap-inspection, a British espionage agent and a bio-computer.

Much in the breathless style of old Tubb tales, Window On the Moon has more than a touch of Mr. Arthur C. Clarke about it, which in my opinion is not a bad thing! Admittedly it is rather more sexual than Mr. Clarke’s work and also what I remember of Mr. Tubb’s usual material, although I rather suspect that the reason for this will be explained in later issues.  Certainly, after the bombast of last month’s serial, it is a pleasure to read something that just does what it needs to do. But is it memorable? Almost a four out of five, but, in the end, a three out of five. [The Journey does not give half-stars for shorts… (Ed.)]

Quest, by Mr. Lee Harding

The return of Mr. Harding gives us a story of one man’s search to find something ‘real’ in an increasingly artificial world, although it is never clear exactly why there is this need. It reminded me of Mr. Philip K. Dick’s stories about the nature of identity and artificiality. There’s a twist at the end, which isn’t as original as it would like to be, but the story was an enjoyable read. Three out of five.

Dossier, by Mr. John Rackham

From another New Worlds regular, Mr. Rackham’s tale this time is a variant of the old ‘superhuman’ idea, with the key character using his superior powers of deduction to retrieve an important scientist captured by an enemy. It’s an exciting story, but I felt that the story hindered for being a retread. Three out of five.

Compensation, by Mr. James Inglis

Continuing this month’s issue trend of one-word titles, Mr. Inglis’s story is one of very different aliens meeting. When an Earth expedition meets the Thorm, the interspecies communication is more than the humans expected, or hoped for. The story ends with a pleasingly positive revelation, which suggests the uplift of the human race — but the ending felt a little insipid. Three out of five points.

Adaptation, by Mr. Roy Robinson

We finish this month’s fiction with a novelette from an author new to me, but who was actually last in New Worlds in 1959. An expedition team are sent to a new planet to trial conditions before the colonists arrive, and there find a rapidly adapting species that challenges their presence. A story that was more engaging than I thought it would be, the escalating events had a great sense of peril throughout until an ending that seemed appropriate. Four out of five — my favourite story of the issue.

At the back of the issue The Book Review from Mr. Leslie Flood returns this month, with reviews of Mr. J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World (“local boy done good”) and the “thoroughly enjoyable, non-cerebral” entertainment of Mr. Poul Anderson’s After Doomsday.

In summary, the editorship of Mr Moorcock has produced a much-needed breath of fresh air this month. An issue with less filler than of late. This may be the sign of a change. The serial and novelette in particular seem stronger and generally better overall, combining aspects of the traditional with the ‘New Wave’.




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Science / Space Race

[March 24, 1963] Bumper Crop (A bounty of exciting space results)

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by Gideon Marcus

February and March have been virtually barren of space shots, and if Gordo Cooper's Mercury flight gets postponed into May, April will be more of the same.  It's a terrible week to be a reporter on the space beat, right?

Wrong!

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Rocket launches may make for good television, what with the fire, the smoke, and the stately ascent of an overgrown pencil into orbit…but the real excitement lies in the scientific results.  And this month has seen a tremendous harvest, expanding our knowledge of the heavens to new (pardon the pun) heights.  Enjoy this suite of stories, and tell me if I'm not right…

How hot is it?

Mariner 2 went silent more than two months ago, but scientists are still poring over the literal reams of data returned since its rendezvous with Venus.  The first interplanetary mission was a tremendous success, revealing a great deal about the Planet of Love, whose secrets were heretofore protected by distance and a shroud of clouds. 

Here's the biggie: Preliminary reports suggested that the surface temperature of "Earth's Twin" is more than 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  It turns out that was a conservative estimate.  In fact, the rocky, dry landscape of Venus swelters at 800 degrees — possibly even hotter than the day side of sun-baked first planet, Mercury.  It's because the planet's dense carbon dioxide atmosphere acts like a heat blanket.  There's no respite on the night side of the hot world either; the thick air spreads the temperatures out evenly.

Thus, virtually every story written about Venus has been rendered obsolete.  Will Mariner 3 destroy our conception of Mars, too?

Just checking the lights

On February 25, the Department of Defense turned little Solrad 1 back on after 22 months of being off-line.  The probe had been launched in conjunction with a navigation satellite, Transit, back in June 1960.  For weeks, it had provided our first measurements of the sun's X-ray output (energy in that wavelength being blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and, thus, undetectable from the ground).  DoD has given no explanation for why the probe has been reactivated, or why it was turned off in the first place.  Maybe there's a classified payload involved?

Radio News from the Great White Spacecraft

Last September, the Canadians launched their first satellite — the "top-sounder," Alouette, whose mission was to measure the radio-reflective regions of our atmosphere from above.  The results are in, and to any HAM or communications buff, its huge news.

It turns out that the boundaries of the ionosphere are rougher at higher latitudes than at lower latitudes.  Moreover, Alouette has determined that the Van Allen Belts, great girdles of radiation around our planet, dip closer to the Earth at higher latitudes.  This heats up the ionosphere and causes the roughness-causing instability. — the more active the electrons, the poorer the radio reflection.  Now we finally know why radio communication is less reliable way up north.  The next step will be learning how to compensate for this phenomenon so that communication, both civil and military, can be made more reliable.

Sun Stroke Warning

After a year in orbit, NASA's Orbiting Solar Observatory is still going strong, with 11 of 13 experiments still functioning.  The satellite has probably returned more scientifically useful data than all of the ground-based solar observatories to date (certainly in the UV and X Ray spectra, which is blocked by the atmosphere).

Moreover, OSO 1 has returned a startling result.  It turns out that solar flares, giant bursts of energy that affect the Earth's magnetic field, causing radio storms and aurorae, are preceded by little microflares.  The sequence and pattern of these precursors may be predictable, in which case, OSO will give excellent advance warning of these distruptive events.

Tax money at work, indeed!

Galaxy, Galaxy, Burning Bright

In the late 1950s, astronomers began discovering some of the brightest objects in the universe.  It wasn't their visible twinkle that impressed so much as their tremendous radio outbursts.  What could these mysterious "quasi-stellar sources" be?

Now we have a pretty good guess, thanks to a recent scientific paper.  Cal Tech observers using the Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories turned their gaze to object 3C 273, a thirtheenth magnitude object in the constellation of Virgo.  It turns out that 3C 273's spectrum exhibits a tremendous "red shift," that is to say, all of the light coming from it has wavelengths stretched beyond what one would expect.  This is similar to the decrease in pitch of a railroad whistle as the engine zooms away from a listener.

The only way an object could have such a redshift is if it were of galactic proportions and receding from us at nearly 50,000 km/sec.  This would place it almost 200,000,000 light years away, making it one of the most distant (and therefore, oldest) objects ever identified.

At some point, astronomer Hubble's contention that the universe is expanding is likely to be confirmed.  These quasi-stellar objects ("quasars"?) therefore represent signposts from a very young, very tiny universe.  What exciting times we live in!

Five years of Beep, Beep

St. Patricks Day, 1958 — Vanguard 1 was the fourth satellite in orbit, but it was the first civilian satellite, and it is the oldest one to remain up there.  In fact, it is the only one of the 24 probes launched in the 1950s that still works.

What has a grapefruit-sized metal ball equipped with a radio beacon done for us?  Well, plenty, actually.  Because it has been tracked in orbit so long, not only have we learned quite a bit about the shape of the Earth (the variations in Vanguard's orbit are due to varying gravities on the Earth, the measurement of which is called "geodetics"), but the satellite's slow decay also tells us a lot about the density of the atmosphere several hundred miles up.

So, while Sputnik and Explorer might have had the first laughs, Vanguard looks likely to have the last for a good long time.

Telstar's little brother does us proud

RCA's Relay 1, launched in December, is America's second commercial communications satellite.  It ran into trouble immediately upon launch, its batteries producing too little current to operate its transmitter.  Turns out it was a faulty regulator on one of the transponders; the bright engineers switched to the back-up (this is why you carry a spare!), and Relay was broadcasting programs across the Atlantic by January.  660 orbits into its mission and 500 beamed programs later, NASA announces that Relay has completed all tests. 

Nevertheless, why abandon a perfectly good orbital TV station?  Relay will continue to be used to transmit shows transcontinentally, especially now that Telstar has finally gone silent (February 21).  There is even talk that Relay could broadcast the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, if it lasts that long!

In a sea of Blue, a drop of Red

On March 12, 3-12 at the Spring Recognition Dinner of Miracle Mile Association, in Los Angeles, Cal Tech President, Lee DuBridge, noted that the United States has put 118 probes into space, while the Russians have only lofted 34 (that we know of).  He also pointed out that virtually no scientific papers have resulted from the Soviets' "science satellites." 

As if in reply, on March 21 the Soviets finally, after 89 days without a space shot, launched Kosmos 13.  (To be fair, it's been kind of quiet on the American side, too).  The probe was described as designed to "continue outer space research."  No description of payload nor weight specifications were given.  Its orbit is one that allows it to cover much of the world.  While it may be that some of the Kosmos series are truly scientific probes, you can bet that, like America's Discoverer program, the Kosmos label is a blind to cover the Russians' use of spy satellites.  Oh well.  Turnabout is fair play, right?

[Next up, don't miss Mark Yon's spotlight of this month's New Worlds!  And if I saw you at Wondercon, do drop me a line…]

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Magazine

[March 22, 1963] Return Engagements (April 1963 Fantastic)

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by Victoria Silverwolf

Those of us who are book addicts like to keep track of what's going on in the literary world.  One way to do this is to turn to the New York Times best seller list.  Unfortunately, strikers shut down the city's newspapers in December, preventing us from getting our weekly fix.

We can now breathe a sigh of relief.  The strike is settling down.  The list, which was unavailable from the middle of December until the beginning of March, has returned.  The near-future thriller Seven Days in May by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, which ended the truncated year at the top of the list, kept that position at the start of this month. 

It was encouraging to see a science fiction novel (even if it wasn't labeled as such) reach number one.  (It has since been replaced by a slim volume containing J. D. Salinger's two novellas Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.  They may not be SF, but they're definitely worth reading.)

The Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre this month.  No doubt the French missed their great art treasure as much as New Yorkers did their newspapers.

A less welcome return, as least to my taste, was the Four Seasons to the top of the music charts with their third number one hit, Walk Like a Man.

Fittingly, the latest issue of Fantastic features the return of many names closely associated with the magazine, as well as authors returning to universes they created.

Some Fabulous Yonder, by Philip José Farmer

Frank Bruno's cover art depicts one of the bizarre creatures encountered in this space adventure.  The author revisits the setting of his tales about criminal-turned-priest John Carmody, which have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in recent years.  Carmody is mentioned in passing in this story, but does not take an active role in the plot.  Instead, the protagonist is the government agent who pursued him.  In this story, he turns his attention to another master criminal, a pirate who steals a starship, killing everyone aboard.  His intent is to invade a planet thought to be impossible to conquer.  The story begins as a hardboiled detective yarn, but soon becomes much stranger when the secrets of the planet emerge.  The breakneck pace of this story may leave the reader breathless, even if the plot twists seem arbitrary.  It all leads up to a scene revealing the immensity of time and space.  This wild ride is never boring, at least.  Three stars.

The Malatesta Collection, by Roger Zelazny

A young author who has already appeared in the pages of editor Cele Goldsmith's magazines several times returns with a tale set long after an atomic war.  The new civilization that rises from the ashes is a prim and proper one.  This causes a problem when scholars discover an ancient fallout shelter filled with erotic literature.  The ensuing conflict leads to a symbolic gesture by a rebellious artist.  This is an intriguing story, which can be seen as an allegory about censorship.  Four stars.

A Fate Worse Than . . ., by Robert H. Rohrer

Another new writer familiar to readers of Amazing and Fantastic, although not as prolific, returns with a very different post-atomic story.  It seems that Satanists dug themselves into the Earth in search of Hell, and thus were the only survivors of a nuclear war.  The result is a society in which church services are black masses.  The protagonist is a fellow who secretly summons an angel, the way a magician might summon a demon in our world.  This interesting premise, which could have led to enjoyable satire, is wasted on a familiar story of being careful what you wish for.  Two stars.

The Casket-Demon, by Fritz Leiber

One of the great names in fantastic fiction returns to the magazine that restarted his career with an unusual tale of magic and the movies.  A glamorous film star literally fades away, due to lack of publicity.  Weighing only a few pounds, and so attenuated that she becomes translucent, she turns to an ancient family curse.  By releasing a malevolent creature from inside a small box, she hopes to return to the headlines, even though she knows the price will be a very high one.  This offbeat story combines horror, satire, and whimsical fantasy into a tasty stew.  Four stars.

Survival Packages, by David R. Bunch

A writer that some readers love to hate also returns in this issue.  He revisits Moderan, his dystopic future where survivors of an atomic holocaust have bodies that are mostly metal.  They live in fortresses and make endless war on each other.  Into this terrible world come time capsules, buried long ago and forgotten, brought from underground by robots.  Their contents are disturbing.  The author's style is not as eccentric as usual in this story, and it carries a powerful impact.  Four stars.

A Thing of Terrible Beauty, by Harrison Denmark

Rumor has it that this unknown name is actually a disguise for Roger Zelazny, making his second appearance in the issue.  The style certainly seems like his.  In any case, the narrator is an immaterial alien mind that inhabits the brain of a drama critic.  The man becomes aware of his uninvited visitor.  The alien makes an unexpected revelation.  This is an effective mood piece, if more of an anecdote than a fully developed story.  Three stars.

Rain Magic, by Erle Stanley Gardner

The famous creator of Perry Mason returns with the third of his old pulp stories to be reprinted as so-called fantasy classics.  This fast-paced adventure story first appeared in the October 20, 1928 issue of Argosy.

An old man, passed out in the desert, relates his weird experiences in Africa.  After a shipwreck, he abandons his vessel and is taken in by the local inhabitants.  Among the many dangers he faces are bloodsucking bats, a hostile monkey-man, warring tribes, and man-eating ants.  The action never lets up for a second.  An interesting preface by the author states that the story is based on what he was told by an elderly fellow he met in the desert.  Whatever the truth of this may be, the reader is never bored.  (As in any pulp yarn from the time, there's an unpleasant trace of racism.  The narrator mentions the superiority of the white race, but at least he's somewhat skeptical about it.  He also falls in love with an African woman, which would still raise some eyebrows in this segregated nation of ours.  The story is much less offensive than many others of its kind.) Three stars.

Possible to Rue, by Piers Anthony

Finishing the issue is this light comedy, the author's first published work.  A wealthy man offers to buy his son a pet of any kind.  The boy requests a flying horse, then a unicorn.  The man goes to the encyclopedia to prove they do not exist.  When he asks for mundane animals, the unexpected happens.  This is a clever little bagatelle, likely to amuse.  Three stars.

If the magazine continues to offer stories of good quality, I'll be sure to return to it many times. 

[Speaking of returns, don't miss the next article, about the newest harvest of scientific discoveries from our satellites!]

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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[March 20, 1963] TIME TRAVEL (1962 from the perspective of SFF-writer, David Rome)

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[I am very pleased to present an article that just arrived by post from David Boutland (a.k.a. David Rome), whose stories have been the subject of review several times.  It marks the first time this fanzine has been graced with presence of a current SFF writer.  It is written in the form of a retrospective, at the big end of a 55-year long telescope…]


by David Rome

In Chester I went exploring the remembered years, turning left into a cul-de-sac of terraced houses and here is the corner shop on the right and ahead the low brick wall topped by the rusty spiked iron railings.

And on the other side of the railings the railway shunting yard with shrill whistle of shunting engine.

A clatter of running feet, two small boys racing each other and the echo of my own voice ringing out after the troops returned from the war and my old man had quit his job at the dairy, taken us out of Sodhouse Bank Gateshead, and brought us here to start a new life.

And I stand looking at number 8 Gresford Avenue then walk the few strides to the end of the street. How short the distance and how small the houses. I look down over waist-high rusty spikes into the place of old adventures. A trickling flow of what couldn't even be called a stream scummy with weed and rubbish and along there where the old gasometer had been that kid went fishing with jamjar on a long string and had fallen screaming and drowned under stagnant water.

I turned my back on the railway wasteland and stood looking at the little windows of crowded little houses. How different to the low, tiled bungalows of the Great South Land. Maybe I don't belong here. Maybe I don't fit.

But I found a flat over a butcher's shop and settled in. Early each morning I was woken by the pounding of cleavers as bloody carcasses were dismembered. Nightly, the tv set showed scenes of protest in Trafalgar Square where truncheon-wielding London bobbies were doing what cops all over the world do, enforce the will of their masters. They charged into peaceful crowds of CND demonstrators with thudding truncheons.

In Russia, America, and Britain missiles with atomic warheads stood ready to end all war.

And in the U.S. Kennedy told Khrushchev to get his missiles the hell out of Cuba. Khrushchev's reply was go to hell. Kennedy blockaded Cuba.

There's a kind of hush

was the mood.

The Earth spins through space. Our home. Infinite space surrounds us. No known habitable world to escape to. The tests of the pre-Cuba crisis had already exposed half a million people to radiation as politicians and glory-hungry generals sought to gain the edge. Two million workers in nuclear weapons plants were preparing to seed the environment with life-wasting emissions. Human guinea pigs were reported to have been tested in the Nevada desert. Their skin peeled loose and their hair fell out. Kennedy urged Congress to build fallout shelters.

The world turned.

While murder was contemplated on a scale beyond human imagination. While secret underground bunkers were readied for our Rulers so the Administration could preserve what it always preserves: itself. 

Meanwhile a judge sat on high and looked down on the likes of James Hanratty, a young petty criminal convicted of shooting dead another young man and raping his victim's girlfriend before shooting her, and leaving her paralyzed. His trial went on for twenty one days, the longest and one of the most expensive in the history of murder in England. The jury took almost ten hours to bring in their verdict of guilty. Hanratty was put to death.

And even as nuclear stand-off in Cuba paralyzed the world, new evidence emerged that persuaded many of us that Hanratty was a victim of a state killing and was not a murderer.

Killers must be brought to account. What nightmare scenario would the fat cats, the smug politicians and their privileged families – privileged to live – look upon when, how many years afterward? they emerged into the landscape of a once green and pleasant land?

And when they walked out into the radiation-glow of endless night would we take the only weapons we had left to us to stab and club and hang those who commited the ultimate crime of laying an entire planet to waste?

In the blood-scented world above the butcher's shop I wrote comics now as well as pulp crime and science fiction.

On the pages of Romeo a young girl ran across a mystic country to meet her boyfriend orbiting overhead in starlit night in his space capsule. Mutating butterflies in a child's garden were a prelude to the changing world of The Pink Peril. Featured in Thomson Leng's Judy was Phillipa's Friend Finny, a porpoise tamed before the bottle nosed stars of television leapt across the screen. The war was fought in the air across Europe, and in the jungles of New Guinea, in Fleetway's Battle Picture series.

Millions of words sweated out, to earn a living, but no market be it pulp or comic-book that wasn't approached with respect.

Working on a comic script I used the carpeted floor of my upstairs flat to lay out roughly sketched pictures which, redrawn by an artist, would illustrate the story. I could shuffle their order, add 'boxes' at top or bottom, scribble in lines of dialogue, put in thought bubbles.

One morning I heard a sound I was attuned to, the clack of the letter box, and I broke off and went to the top of the stairs.

Rejections in their self-addressed manila envelopes lay on the doormat.

I opened the door and watched the postman moving away. We were into summer but a bleak wind was blowing down the street. I closed the door again and went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea.

I thought of my time here, and of the stories I had written. Some, a few, I had thought were special. Lately, I'd sold Foreign Body to New Worlds, the story of a science fiction pulp writer whose acceptance cheques stop arriving. The mag had come with the rejections and I opened it to the contents page, feeling nostalgia at the memories it evoked: of writing my first-ever story for Pocket Man, six years ago, of selling Time of Arrival to New Worlds, and of selling Parky in America.

Good days.

Now – New Worlds was in its seventeenth year of publication. It had been started by writers and fans who invested money and time, and dragged up by its bootstraps by the legendary editor John Carnell to become the front-ranking professional British science fiction magazine.

But the truth was that, like the pulp crime magazines, its days were coming to an end.

You've gotta have luck. Was mine running out?

'58, I rode aboard the men's magazines, learned my trade, comics earned a dollar when a dollar was needed. But now the market for short stories is on the skids.

I put the magazine aside and took up the letter I had left until last. A blue airmail letter from Sharon, the girl I had left behind in the land of Oz. I'd written and told her I was thinking of coming home, that I was near broke, and her reply was measured, and understanding, and held out hope that we might try again. She had her job at the bank, still, and was saving money, and maybe she could help me to keep writing.

And as the wider world closed in on me, I watched the anti-segregation marches in Montgomery Alabama, fire-hoses turned on blacks, kickings and clubbings; Governor George Wallace:

'"– Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever – "

1960's. Freedom and Insanity in the air.

(Read more at David Rome: Pulp Writer!]

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[March 18, 1963] The Missing Piece (April 1963 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

In prior articles, the latest news has headlined and set the stage for the SFnal reviews that followed.  This week, however, the news is all internal, filled with tidbits like

"YOUNG TRAVELER LEADS ACADEMIC LEAGUE TO DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIPS!"

and

"FIVE YEARS OF R&D CULMINATES IN PRODUCT LAUNCH FOR TRAVELER-HELMED COMPANY!"

And yet, amongst the turmoil created by Mundac the Destroyer, we manage to continue the Journey — our most prized endeavor.  It helps that we now have a tremendous constellation of volunteer writers, allowing us to return to a every-other-day schedule for the first time in four years.  Still, I must do my part.

And so, amidst preparations for the Young Traveler's birthday party, I carved out time to read the April Fantasy and Science Fiction.  It is the inverse of last month's, which was forgettable or worse — until the last story.  This month's is surprisingly good… except for the last few stories.  A fair exchange, I think…

Fast Trip, by James White

Fritz Leiber recently wrote about how computers will soon be advanced enough to beat the best humans at chess in The 64-Square Madhouse.  Anne McCaffrey has written a tale of human brains cybernetically fused computers to control spaceships (The Ship Who Sang).  Now, returns my favorite SF-writing Ulsterian with his own spin on things.  In Fast Trip, we see what happens in a world where pilots are exclusively trained on their own spaceship, for whom swapping craft is as uncomfortable as swapping right-handed gloves with a fellow half your size… and with two left hands.  A good technical thriller.  Four stars.

Still Shall the Lovers, by Doris Pitkin Buck

A poem on how real stars shall always pale in brilliance to those in new lovers' eyes.  Three stars.

Place of Refuge, by Robert J. Tilley

A quick quality dip as Bristolian Tilley writes of the real world as if it be the nightmare, and vice versa.  Uninspired.  Two stars.

The Short and Happy Death of George Frumkin, by Gertrude Friedberg

A playwright, herself, Friedberg turns her hand to a Moderan-esque tale in which a nonagenarian playwright with an electric heart enjoys a brief flash of youthful energy when he's taken off batteries and plugged into the house line.  It's cute.  Three stars.

The Rigid Vacuum, by Isaac Asimov

There are few compound words I like better than "Luminiferous Ether," and fewer people I'd ask to explain this light-conveying substance than The Good Doctor Asimov.  Four stars for the first half of what looks to be a Two Parter.

Tell Me, Doctor – Please, by Kit Reed

Ms. Reed has recently moved and left no forwarding address, sadly terminating our burgeoning correspondence.  As a result, I have no authorial insight for this tale.  Nevertheless, Doctor is a strange and moving piece on dependence and torture as operatives of an evil state attempt to extract the secret of time travel from a bedridden exile from the future.  Difficult to read, and the ending is a strange Matryoshka that I'm still not sure I understood.  But like so much of Reed's stuff, it grips.  Four stars.

Kindergarten, by Fritz Leiber

A straightforward piece on learning the basic X-Y-Zs in a most unusual (and yet, the most commonplace) of settings.  Four stars.

The Voyage of the "Deborah Pratt", by Miriam Allen deFord

F&SF, more than any other SFF digest, is a haven for ghost stories.  This one, involving a 19th Century brig on the Gold Coast run, makes no great advances in plot.  Ah, but the telling, and the subject matter (far more horrific than the fantastic elements), are superb.  Five stars, and sure to be anthologized many times.

The Old Man of the Mountains, by Terry Carr

Over time, certain names in our genre incite a Pavlovian response in me.  For instance, Sheckley provokes a grin.  Garrett incites nausea.  Carr, a newish writer and long-time Big Name Fan, definitely brings about positive reactions, having now impressed me several times in rapid succession.  This pastoral piece, set in the mountains of Oregon, features the reunion of a country-turned-city boy, and the ornery cuss who knew his uncle many years before.  Like the deFord, the quality is in the telling.  Four stars.

My Son, the Physicist! by Isaac Asimov

Here's an inconsequential short-short from a fellow who has mostly abandoned science fiction.  I understand Asimov got a princely per-word sum for this piece, and it was used to adorn an advertisement for Hoffman Electronics in one of last year's Scientific Americans.  Three stars.

The World Must Never Know, by G. C. Edmondson

I really want to like Edmondson, a fellow San Diegan and one of the few non-Whites who has made it into the ranks of the SFF genre (he's Mexican).  But this latest in the series of stories set South of the Border, guest-starring a Mestizo who met an extraterrestrial policeman (to the former's profit, and the latter's dismay), is just too affected.  Two stars.

The Histronaut, by Paul Seabury

I didn't think I'd ever meet a time travel/alternate history story I didn't like, but Seabury managed to produce one.  One page of story preceded by many pages of dithering and nonsense.  And that single page isn't worth the wait.  One star.

Not Counting Bridges, by Robert L. Fish

Finally, a piece on the growing footprint of space devoted to the transit, maintenance, and storage of motor vehicles.  Two stars, careening toward one had it been longer than two pages.

That's a pretty sour note to leave a magazine that still scored a decent 3.2 stars on the Galacto-Meter.  If you stop before the Edmonson, I think you'll find your time thoroughly rewarded.

Speaking of which, I'm now off to jump on the giant trampoline we rented for the birthday party.  If I spot any X-15s on the way down, I'll be sure to snap a photo…




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[March 16, 1963] Red Comes Knocking (The Day Mars Invaded Earth)

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[P.S. If you registered for WorldCon this year, the deadline to vote is tonight! Please consider nominating Galactic Journey for the "Best Fanzine" Hugo. ]


by Lorelei Marcus

The idea that there might be life on Mars has been around for a while now. When I say the word "Martian" most people automatically picture a little green alien with a big, bulbous head. However, this vision is merely a fictional caricature of an alien — we know it's not real. But what if there is life on Mars? Perhaps these Martians are beyond what we can imagine visually, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. For all we know, mars could be populated with vast civilizations. On top of that, if there is life on Mars, then how would they react to us humans? Well, luckily, all of these questions have been answered, not by a scientist, but by the newest movie to hit the box office: The Day Mars Invaded Earth.

Going into this movie, neither me or my father had very high hopes, though we figured as long as the movie didn't literally have 'bottom' in the title, we were probably going to be okay (q.v. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea). Luckily, this movie exceeded our expectations, and we were pleasantly surprised with a thrilling horror-esque mystery. As my dad exclaimed at one point in the film, it was almost like a long Twilight Zone episode.

Our film begins with a shot of a small rover exploring Mars. However, something goes wrong, and the rover catches fire and explodes. Then we are introduced to our main character, Dr. Fielding, the lead scientist on the Mars exploration project. After the stress of the recent rover failure, he decides to go home and visit his family. The house the family was living in at the time was a massive mansion estate, adding to the almost ghost-story feel of the movie. As the movie goes forward, Dr. Fielding and his family quickly start realizing something is wrong. People aren't acting like themselves, they're appearing in two places at once, and there's even a strange accidental death. It isn't long before the Doctor realizes this is all the work of invaders from Mars assuming the forms of other humans, and devises a plan to try and defeat the aliens to save himself and his family.


Martians scan the brain of Dr. Fielding…or a bug ran into the camera

The Day Mars Invaded Earth delivers a very tense (if not exactly taut) and suspenseful mystery with an unexpected twist at the end. The cinematography was excellent, very dynamic. It was particularly neat to see how they managed the special effects when a character and their duplicate were both on screen (accomplished with split screen and body doubles). The acting was also great, very emotional. The story was thrilling and complex, keeping you on the edge of your seat until the very end. I think some may be disappointed by the ending, because it is unexpected, and certainly not "Hollywood," but I think it adds to the movie. It's a movie that gives you a lot to think about, long after the movie is over, quite similar to Panic in Year Zero.

This movie was very enjoyable to watch. Both an intriguing mystery and intense story helped it become an incredibly satisfying film. I give The Day Mars Invaded Earth 4 out of 5 stars. This movie perhaps isn't for everyone, but I felt it told the story it was trying to tell very well. If you are a fan of horror, sci-fi, or mystery, I recommend this movie.

This is the Young Traveler, signing off.


by Gideon Marcus

I think the Young Traveler has done a fine job catching the feel and broad strokes of the film.  I just wanted to add a little commentary.  The opening of The Day Mars Invaded Earth sets a tone of verisimilitude with its reasonably accurate visual and verbal space vocabulary.  The probe that goes to Mars is a Mariner, presumably of the same series as Mariner 2, which just flew past Venus.  There is a model of the spacecraft in Dr. Fielding's office, and it is a Block 2 Ranger, the kind designed to hit the Moon and deposit a scientific package. 

Just as the Block 1 Mariner was adapted for the Venus flight, it makes sense that a Block 2 would be used to go to Mars.  I don't think that's what's actually planned, but for a movie made last year, it was an excellent guess.  It is also launched with an Atlas — also accurate.  An Atlas-Agena launched Mariner 2.

On to the movie, itself, The Day Mars Invaded Earth impresses because it takes the time to develop its characters.  We get to know the Fieldings and understand the strain his job has put on their marriage.  I also appreciated that the Fieldings talk to each other, communicating the strange apparitions they've seen, believing one another, and using the knowledge to very quickly deduce what's happening to them. 

While Director/Producer Maury Dexter, a newish face at schlock-house American International Pictures, clearly didn't have much of a budget to work with, nevertheless, his direction and the cinematography keep the movie from looking cheap.  The beautiful estate on which the bulk of the film is shot doesn't hurt, either.  It helps that stars Kent Taylor and Marie Windsor are veterans (even if they tend to avoid the A-flicks).  Their performances never induce the cringes I'd expected walking into the theater.

In the end, The Day Mars Invaded Earth delivers far more ghost story than sf flick, and you certainly won't see rubber suited Mars-mooks.  Nevertheless, it does make for a decent 69 minutes of entertainment, which is a lot more than I was expecting.  Three stars.

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[March 14, 1963] Rising Stars and Unseen Enemies (Reginald Le Borg's Diary of a Madman)

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by Rosemary Benton

It feels as though, no sooner had the curtain fell and the lights came up on February's horror/fantasy gem, The Raven, that the film reel snapped to life with another genre-crossing macabre film. While last month's movie was a light, dry and sardonic comedy with a vaguely medieval setting and a cast of horror movie icons, Diary of a Madman, steps forward with a much more sobering aesthetic.

In my efforts to reengage with modern science fiction after a long break, Diary of a Madman, a loose reimagining of the 1887 horror/science-fiction short story by French author Guy de Maupassant entitled“The Horla," is a fitting film to follow last month's choice. 

Producer and screenplay writer, Robert Kent, starts the movie off with a view of a crowded cemetery during a Catholic funeral. The recently deceased body of Vincent Price's character, Magistrate Simon Cordier, is blessed and then lowered into the ground. Given the faces and impatience of the guests, the audience can surmise that there was a lot of unfinished business left following Cordier's passing.

At the behest of Cordier prior to his premature death, his private diary is read aloud before a small group of funeral attendees immediately after the graveside ceremony. From here the origin of Cordier's madness at the hands of an invisible being named the Horla is made known. Ultimately Cordier implores the audience of his faithful servants, colleagues and friends to heed his death as a warning, and to act now to learn more and defend against other such beings that may exist out there in the wider world.

It is completely understandable why Robert Kent needed to take liberal creative license with the story of Cordier and the Horla that held his mind captive. Within the original 1887 short story, there is very little dialogue or many coherent lengthy scenes which could be considered prime material for a theatrical performance. Often, Guy de Maupassant allows his protagonist to go on at length, as one would in a diary, about tangential thoughts, theories and philosophies. It's interesting and works beautifully as a train-of-thought discourse regarding the protagonist's fear of going insane.

But where Guy de Maupassant can go on for pages about the building fear felt in the physical manifestations of the Horla's power, Vincent Price must convey the same screaming terror in a few seconds with looks and posture alone. It's reasonable, therefore, that a more fleshed out story would have to be developed in place of the internal monologues of a seemingly schedule-less upperclass gentleman going about his daily life on his estate. Enter the married model whose bust Cordier sculpts, the jealous husband of said model, the threat of public scandal should the magistrate run off with such a lower class woman, and on top of all this, the masterminding, murderous, shapeless entity determined to use Cordier for some unknown, evil end. 

The casting of the ever popular Vincent Price as the lead makes sense in terms of marketing, but I have to unfortunately pan his acting in this movie. Price has been incredibly prolific recently, starring in eleven movies between 1960's House of Usher and this, the year's second Price film. He's cultivated an image that works very well with classy Victorian gentlemen in horror melodramas, and odd, but charming characters in action movies. However, the role of Simon Cordier would have been much better suited to an actor with… dare I say… more range.

The heart and intensity of Guy de Maupassant's protagonist lie in the whiplash emotions that crack back and forth in his mind. He is written as a highly emotive character who is often taken aback at the inexplicable things he is being forced to feel due to the influence of the Horla. When one looks at the face of Vincent Price during scenes such as the floating rose or the breaking of the Horla's spell upon the sight of a cross, you see concern, confusion and shock, but not the true, deep down, freezing cold animal fear that Guy de Maupassant describes.

Thankfully there is a saving talent in the form of the lovely Nancy Kovack. Where Price falls short in the expression of an emotionally manipulated person, Kovack shines bright as a character who is a skillful, emotive manipulator. The real reason to become invested in the plot of Diary of a Madman has to be, hands down, Kovack's character, Odette Mallotte DuClasse. With her wide range of expressions and a deeply personal performance, Kovack gives Odette a painful and human background. A character that would be otherwise cookie-cutter cliché came to life via her acting talent.

Where other actresses would play Odette simply as a two timing gold digger, Kovack gives her an evolution that leads up to her resigned, angry admission of marrying Magistrate Cordier for his money. First, she in entrepreneurial in selling her services as a model within an art gallery displaying paintings for which she has sat. Then, she is knowledgable about portraiture and offers suggestions for how Cordier could sculpt her. She is a confident negotiator who pushes Cordier hard to continue employing her as a model for future projects. For the money she could bring into her starving-artist household she is flirtatiously willing to entertain the proposition of being a companion to Cordier, but it is the scene wherein Cordier proposes marriage that Kovack reveals her character's complexity. Within half a second, and with at least three versions of surprise and uncertainty, Kovack shows shock rather than devious glee at the offer. She quickly recovers and hides her disbelief, but for disbelief to be there in the first part is due undoubtedly to Kovack's full understanding of her character's situation.

All in all, I have to give Robert Kent credit for the interesting story of love and murder that he merges with a select few scenes from the original Guy de Maupassant story. Under the direction of Universal Studios veteran Reginald Le Borg I believe that each actor played to their strengths in Diary of a Madman, although some shone more brightly others. If one is already familiar with “The Horla," I believe they will be more amused than joyous at the adaptation. But given the unique source material I would recommend that anyone should give Diary of a Madman a chance. You may not leave as terrified of the unknown as you would have been reading “The Horla," but at least you can enjoy the performance of Nancy Kovack. In summation I would give Diary of a Madman a lukewarm three and a half stars out of five.

[P.S. If you registered for WorldCon this year, please consider nominating Galactic Journey for the "Best Fanzine" Hugo.  Your ballot should have arrived by now…]




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[March 12, 1963] TOO MUCH TO ASK? (the April 1963 Amazing)

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by John Boston

So: another not-very-good issue, this April Amazing, where the outstanding item is a piece of well-turned yard goods.  So what’s the reasonable expectation here?  Let’s not be too greedy.  How about at least something in each issue that’s unusually good, and nothing that’s unusually stupid?  Is that too much to ask?  Seems like it is, certainly this month.

“It didn’t happen twice a year that Gustavus Robert Fry, Chief Commissioner of the Interstellar Police Authority, allotted more than an hour in his working day to any one appointment.” That’s the opening line of James H. Schmitz’s Beacon to Elsewhere.  Am I the only one who’s gotten tired of stories that begin by announcing what a big shot—interstellar police commissioner, President, Galactic Coordinator, or what have you—one of the characters is? 

Transitory irritations aside, Beacon to Elsewhere—at 64 pages labelled a “novel”—is a reasonably agreeable piece of hokum, involving the discovery of a new series of elements, compounded into Ymir 400, which has many interesting and dangerous properties including emitting a new sort of radiation.  Two 34-kilogram cases of Ym-400 have been stolen from a space ship in transit.  The story starts with 10 pages of talk, with Howard Camhorn, the Overgovernment’s Coordinator of Research, explaining all of this and more to Chief Commissioner Fry.  This is followed by about 45 pages of the gumshoeing adventures of the more plebeian Lieutenant Frank Dowland, on the case in western North America, investigating the activities of some subversive ranchers who may be trying to use the stolen Ym-400 and may or may not be achieving time travel. 

Some large and daunting aliens make cameo appearances, their gravitas unfortunately impaired by the cover depiction which makes one of them look a bit like an oversized Shmoo (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo).  And the story fades out with another nine pages of talk, first Dowland’s debriefing, and then Camhorn and one of his guys talking about the debriefing.  And here is Schmitz’s unusual talent: he renders all this talk in such genial and readable style that he gets away with a way of constructing stories that would get anybody else a quick rejection letter.  I described the last Schmitz story in this magazine as “just capably rearranging the usual SF furniture”; that will do for this one too.  Three stars.

Schmitz’s competent piece of product is accompanied by a suite of fairly lackluster, or worse, short stories.  Roger Zelazny’s Circe Has Her Problems is not metaphorical; Circe has set up shop on a stray asteroid floating loose in interstellar space, hoping for some male company that can withstand her signature talent of turning them into animals.  An android shows up.  It’s as cartoony as it sounds.  Two stars, fewer in the hands of a less lively writer.  Now that Zelazny has broken in, are we getting his earlier practice pieces?

In David Bunch’s Somebody Up There Hates Us, an alien walks into a bar (actually, a night club on New Year’s Eve—and it walks into all of them at the same time, by the clock anyway) and hands out little wish-fulfillment devices, asking only that the patrons wait until midnight to operate them.  Things are not of course what they seem, and humanity (most of it anyway) is saved only because the bartenders are robots and we have time zones.  There is a smattering of ostentatious futuristic jargon (the protagonist is drinking an old fashioned space squeezings) in what is said to be 1972, but otherwise the writing is fairly mundane, unlike Bunch’s Moderan stories, which at least have the virtue of surface novelty.  There is a recurring theme of the mutual dislike between the protagonist and his wife, which is apparently supposed to be funny but is distasteful.  One star.

J.F. Bone’s For Service Rendered is a deal-with-the-Devil story, the Devil having come through Enid Twilley’s malfunctioning TV set, no pentagram needed.  He doesn’t want her soul, he wants her body, and he’s offering to cure the pancreatic cancer she didn’t know she had and give her another ten years or so free before whisking her off to Hel (sic), which he wants her to know isn’t half as bad as it’s cracked up to be.  This is all laid out in reasonably amusing detail, and then concludes in a stupid male-chauvinistic joke.  Another one-star job.

Harrison Denmark’s [a pseudonym if I've ever seen one…(Ed.)] The Stainless Steel Leech is about a werebot, who’s gotten free from Central Control but, to live (so to speak), needs to get his batteries charged by draining other robots, so he’s also a vampbot (my term, not the author’s) and an object of terror among the other robots (humans having disappeared from the scene).  This mildly clever joke is less annoying than but somewhat similar in tone to Circe Has Her Problems, not too surprisingly since rumor has it that Mr. Denmark is actually Zelazny.  Two stars, clutching futilely for a third.

Frank Tinsley is back after a six months’ absence with The Cosmic Wrecker, a more fanciful exercise than his usual; nobody else seems to be proposing a specialized vehicle to tool around and collect all the burnt-out and abandoned satellites and other assorted hardware we’re going to be leaving in near space.  It’s the usual slightly humdrum rendition, but three stars for originality, never mind that SF writers have been there before—see James White’s Deadly Litter, in New Worlds not long ago (US and UK editions).


And Sam Moskowitz, this time, profiles Lester del Rey, with the usual intense focus on his earliest work, and very spotty coverage of his post-1950 work.  (It’s not just me.  One of the readers’ letters this months calls Moskowitz out for “the manner in which they progress in pertinent detail up to about the mid and late ‘forties and then hastily run a bee-line to the nearby closing sentences.  There is hardly any mention of the author’s latter-day achievements.”)

There’s also a concluding psychological diagnosis that seems incoherent and nonsensical to me.  Del Rey has “never learned the lesson of self-discipline”—a guy who has maintained a very high level of free-lance professional productivity of several kinds for the last decade-plus.  Or: “His facade of toughness would seem to be fabricated more to maintain his own self-estimation than as a defense against the world.  Nevertheless its manifestation in his writing represents a psychological conflict that dams up the release of a reservoir of compassion.”

Huh?  What’s he talking about?  Del Rey has always seemed to me one of SF’s more compassionate writers; take a look at the stories in his Ballantine collection of a few years ago, Robots and Changelings.  Moskowitz seems almost laughably off base here, though as usual there’s interesting biographical information here that you won’t find elsewhere (but adding it all up I’m not sure how much of it to believe).  Anyway, two stars.

So, another waste of time for the most part.  Is there hope?  Maybe.  They are touting Leigh Brackett for next month.  If we’re lucky, she’s still better than her husband (fellow SFF-writer Edmond Hamilton).

[P.S. If you registered for WorldCon this year, please consider nominating Galactic Journey for the "Best Fanzine" Hugo.  Your ballot should have arrived by now…]




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